“What if he confessed to the cats like he just confessed to the murders?” Ava asked. “What do they call that, when someone continually confesses to things they didn’t do?”

“It’s called needing a kick in their ass,” muttered Mason. Ava poked him in the ribs.

“I wonder if he’s seen a psychiatrist,” Nora asked. “I’d like his doctor’s opinion on this. Do you think Micah would tell us if he’s had mental health treatment?”

“Can’t hurt to ask,” said Zander. “Even though he knows a lot of facts from those murders, I don’t think he did it. I do think he knows who committed them.”

“Could he want to impress some street kids?” murmured Ava. “Maybe he’s stepped forward to steal their thunder or protect some of them.”

“These weren’t sloppy murders,” Zander pointed out. “Not something I’d expect a group of street kids to do. He’s confessing for a reason, but we don’t know what it is yet.”

“No one here thinks he’s our killer?” asked Nora. Silence met her question.

“Dammit.”

22

Nora Hawes had given him the stink-eye a few times, but Mason ignored it. He was going to push every boundary he could until she explicitly told him to get lost. Until then he wasn’t going anywhere. He read the computer screen over Henry Becker’s shoulder as the detective went through Officer Fujioka’s history. Henry had checked Fujioka’s name against the crimes on which Schefte and Samuelson had crossed paths, and had come up empty. Zander had supplied some of Vance Weldon’s FBI case history, but Mason knew it was incomplete. The FBI wouldn’t blindly hand over information on its domestic terrorism cases. Zander had taken Fujioka’s information and gone back to the FBI office to work with Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick in the privacy of their own computers and databases. He’d promised to return to the task force by that evening.

“Officer Fujioka volunteered with three different philanthropy programs,” said Ava, stepping into the room. “I don’t know how he had time to go to work. He also attended the HealthNut fitness center that the other two men belonged to.” Frustration crossed her face. “We need to find a narrower connection.”

“The connection might be pretty old,” said Mason. “Remember the Bridge Killer?” He was referring to a past case in which the adult murder victims had been friends as teenagers.

“I can’t forget,” Ava muttered. “And now I’m thinking about the women who were murdered last summer because they were all in law enforcement.”

Her face had paled a bit. That case had nearly pushed her over the edge, and she’d considered leaving the FBI. “How long are we going to let Micah Zuch sit in that room?” she asked.

“He’s fine,” said Mason. “He’s got McDonald’s and a soda. That keeps every kid that age satisfied for a while.”

“He’s not a kid. He’s twenty.”

“He’s a kid,” asserted Mason. “He’s no man.” He’d been disgusted with the whining behavior Micah had displayed after Zander’s interview. Displeased with the brevity of the interview, Micah had asked to talk to Zander’s boss. Nora had mollified him with promises of “I’ll see what I can do.” The fast food had kept him quiet for an hour, and Mason suspected a video game system would keep the kid silent for the next twenty-four hours.

“Special Agent Euzent is upstairs,” said Ava. “He’s watching the video of Zander’s interview with Micah. I peeked in and saw him shake his head over and over.”

“He knows the kid is lying.”

“Now to get Micah to tell us who really did it,” Ava said. “He has to know.”

“I wonder if Euzent would be useful in that interview. With all his hocus-pocus, witchy reading of people, I bet he can get the kid to beg to tell the real truth.”

“Profiling isn’t hocus-pocus.” She gave him a stern look.

He knew that, but at least he’d distracted Ava from thinking about last summer’s near-death experience. “I have the utmost respect for your profiler. You know that. He’s been a big help in the past. Let’s go see if Micah’s ready to talk to us.” He followed Ava up to the next floor and into the small conference room. Six other members of the task force were already present, including Nora and Henry.

Nora stepped to the front of the room and held up her hand to capture everyone’s attention. “Before Special Agent Euzent gives us his thoughts on our unsub, I just heard from the evidence team. We’ve got a fingerprint from last night’s mask. It matches the unusual print on Samuelson and Weldon, and we checked Micah Zuch’s fingerprints. He doesn’t have the smiley face.”

Ava had told Mason about the smiley face fingerprint. He wasn’t surprised to learn it didn’t belong to Micah Zuch. It’d bugged him that it hadn’t been present at Denny’s murder scene, and now it’d turned up at the fourth death. Why not at Denny’s?

“Is there anything else that’s different from the Schefte scene?” Henry asked, voicing Mason’s train of thought. “One case without that marker seems odd.”

“I agree,” said Nora. “And the fingerprint has been in the exact same spot on each mask. It’s on the inside of the forehead area.” She looked at Special Agent Bryan Euzent. “Your thoughts? Are we wrong to include Denny Schefte’s murder?”